In the field of factory automation (FA), various automatic control techniques are used widely. Such automatic control techniques may be used for applications for tracking the positions of targets such as workpieces and processing the workpieces as intended, using various robots.
Designing or examining the system to be controlled with the above automatic control technique may need preliminary evaluation of the performance of the entire system. In response to this, a technique has been developed for virtually creating a system and simulating its operation. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2013-191128 (Patent Literature 1) describes a technique for integrated simulations of a mechanical system including a visual sensor in a real space corresponding to a virtual imaging unit. With the technique described in Patent Literature 1, a 3D simulator and a visual sensor simulator cooperate with each other to virtually generate captured images of a workpiece in a 3D space at predetermined timings.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 09-258815 (Patent Literature 2) describes simulations in which one model follows another. The simulations represent the kinetic chain of models that move in accordance with the master-slave relationship defined between the affecting model and the affected model.